


Wither in the Dark

by speculating



Category: Stockholm Pennsylvania (2015)
Genre: Abduction, Gen, Moral Ambiguity, Past Child Abuse, Rehabilitation, Stalking, Stockholm Syndrome, Ten Years Later, The Author Regrets Everything, past Abduction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 15:18:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4440893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speculating/pseuds/speculating
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years after her rescue, Ben McKay gets parole, and after his probation is up, he's on his own.  And Leanne has been watching him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wither in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> I...have no freaking idea. I watched Stockholm, Pennsylvania and when the credits rolled, I just started typing. This is what I found I had typed when I was through. It makes no sense at all, and I'm deeply sorry for it. I just have to put it out in the universe now, and I think my brain will have recovered from that movie. That was heavy stuff. Loved it, but it seriously whacked me out.
> 
> This hasn't been betaed, and won't be, and it hasn't been continued, and won't be. It's just a lonely little one-shot that I needed to purge. It isn't necessarily ten years later--it might be more, but that's the figure I guessed at.
> 
> This doesn't make much sense to begin with, but I think it REALLY won't make any sense if you haven't seen the movie. Unfortunately, it has no DVD release, and it took me forever to find a way to watch it, so...good luck. You can wade your way through it a movie-virgin if you'd like, just don't blame me if you're confused.

There was his trial.

Leia--Leanne, his therapist corrected--wasn’t there.

Ben was sentenced.

Leia--Leanne--didn’t come to see him a second time. He worried about her.

‘Are you worried about her for yourself, or are you worried about her because you care about her?’ his therapist asked.

‘Both,’ he admitted, after a couple of years of therapy. ‘She was right. I crippled her. She doesn’t know how to do anything. I’m scared something will happen to her. I…I hurt when I think of something happening to her.’

His therapist’s expression never changed, like always. ‘You hurt?’

He touched his chest. ‘Here.’

His therapist said that was good, but that it was even better that he was admitting that what he’d done was wrong.

He should have been in prison for the rest of his life, but space and resources were scarce, and he’d been good the whole time he’d been there, quietly behaving. They said he was mostly cured, and they put him in a halfway home.

He wasn’t allowed to live within a certain number of miles of any elementary schools, pre-schools or daycares. He had a probation officer who checked up on everything he did, checked on him every day. The director of the halfway home was also a probation officer, and he made sure Ben was in bed by nine and up by seven. The director had a tendency, like the prison guards had, to turn a blind eye when one of the other parolees decided to smack Ben around.

Nobody believed it when the DNA tests from the bed came back negative, because Le-- _Leanne_ had refused the rape kit, and she didn’t testify. In the eyes of the world, he was a pedophile, regardless of what any other tests said. Just because they couldn’t charge him with it didn’t mean he couldn’t be convicted by public opinion.

He kept being good and doing what he was told. He tried not to think about her anymore, like his therapist said. His ex-therapist. After his parole ended, and he was sent out of the halfway house to make his own way in the world, they said he was ‘cured’ and he didn’t need a therapist anymore.

He disagreed. He felt so lost and alone. He had never known how to deal with the world very well in the first place, and now it had turned even more unfriendly and unforgiving.

He got a job sweeping floors, but it didn’t last long. The boss’s daughter was six, and when she screamed when Ben turned a corner and accidentally ran into her, he was sent on his way, on none-too-friendly terms.

No reference this time. Ben wondered how he would get another job so he could find a place to live. He was living in an alley, behind a dumpster, right now. He sat and tried not to think about his time with her, because that was BAD, no matter how warm and happy it made him feel.

 

 

 

It was raining when she came. He was sitting on the curb after another unsuccessful job interview, and a car pulled up, splashing him with water from the gutter. Ben sputtered and blinked it out of his eyes, dimly hearing a car door, and when he could see again, there were a pair of sneakers in front of him. He followed the legs upward, and there she was, staring at him with an unreadable expression.

‘Le--Leanne?’ he said, disbelieving.

‘Leia,’ she corrected, and then paused. ‘To you, anyway.’

He stared at her. Her expression never changed. He couldn’t read it at all--it was cold, closed to him.

She stepped over to the rear passenger door and opened it.

‘Get in. I already got your things from the alley.’

She’d known where he was living.

Stiffly, Ben stood.

‘I’m not supposed to go near you,’ he said reluctantly, even though he was overjoyed to see her.

She was older now, but while time had given him grey hair and wrinkles, she’d only got more beautiful.

Her lips quirked briefly, a short flash of humor. ‘You’re not going near me-- _I’m_ going near _you_ ,’ she corrected him again.

‘Oh,’ he said.

‘Get in the car, Ben,’ she instructed, tersely this time.

He obeyed, shaking a little. His things were sitting on the floorboard, just as she’d said.

What did she want with him?

They drove to the other side of the city, to a nice, modest neighborhood. She made him lie down in the seat so no one would see him, and only let him sit up again when they were in the garage and the door was shut.

‘Get out,’ she said, again terse and unreadable.

Ben obeyed again.

She frowned. ‘Get your things, too, idiot.’

He scrambled to collect his bag, and followed when she beckoned.

‘Is this your house?’ he dared to ask when she remained silent through the kitchen and living room.

It was really nice--tastefully, modestly decorated. She obviously had done well for herself.

It bore no resemblance to her parents’ old home or their basement.

‘Yes,’ she said simply.

Questions were obviously unwelcome.

He fell silent.

For a moment.

‘Down here,’ she said, and flung open the basement door.

Ben went cold, staring at her. Her expression remained blank and hard. He had no idea what she was thinking or feeling at all.

‘Are you going to kill me?’ he asked quietly.

Another quirk of her lips--she thought that was funny.

‘If I was going to kill you, I would have run you over back on the sidewalk so it would look like an accidental hit-and-run,’ she said dryly.

‘Oh.’

‘Go downstairs.’

Ben studied her for a moment longer, and then nodded silently, carefully easing down the stairs as though he expected a booby trap.

The door shut behind him as soon as he was a few steps down, and he heard a lock slide into place.

His heart in his throat, he continued down into the dark.

It _was_ dark down here. There was one lamp, over in a corner. It took his eyes a while to adjust, particularly since they weren’t what they used to be.

He hugged his bag and sat down on the floor when they had adjusted.

It was a large basement. There was a full bathroom in one corner--a living room-like area in another. A curtained area created a somewhat private bedroom, with a small cot for a bed. It looked like the kind strung with ropes, and the pad on it was thin. He would be less comfortable than in prison.

And in the fourth corner was a crate.

She’d done her research. She knew what he was afraid of, now--the worst of the foster homes he’d been cycled through. The one that made him afraid of the world, and made him reject traditional religion.

One of the first foster homes, which had damaged him too much for any of the subsequent ones to want to keep him for long.

He put his bag down and padded back up the stairs as quietly as he could, rapping on the door.

A slat opened and her eyes peered in at him. She’d been expecting this.

‘Yes?’

Ben bit his lip, trying not to tremble.

‘Do you want me to get in the crate?’ he asked, his voice quiet and strained.

She appeared to think that over. ‘Have you been bad?’

He didn’t know how to answer that. He’d been bad--long ago, but he’d been in prison for it, done his time. That particular crime was supposed to be paid for already.

Hesitantly, he shook his head.

‘Okay,’ she said, almost gently, though her expression never changed. ‘Then you can go take a bath and get into some dry clothes.’

‘Okay,’ he said, softly.

‘Afterward, there’s a rope in your living room. If you pull it, a bell goes off that tells me you need me. Pull it, and I’ll come down and we’ll talk.’

‘Okay,’ he repeated.

‘Ben.’

He stopped, staring at her anxiously. She didn’t look happy--well, more than she had since she picked him up.

‘What do we say?’

That was from _her_ captivity, not his foster home experiences. She had been taught to say please and thank you, because Ben had fancied himself a good ‘parent’ to her. He straightened.

‘Thank you.’

‘Don’t forget again.’

He shook his head immediately, and the slat closed.

He crept back down the stairs and had his bath. She’d thrown out the rest of his clothes when she ‘collected his things,’ he discovered, but she had provided some new clothes, hanging in the bedroom area. They were all more like what he used to wear, when she was his. She’d even provided a watch on the bedside table, almost exactly like his old one.

There wasn’t much left in his bag of belongings--a few important papers, his reading glasses (one lens cracked), and the two books and few amusements he’d managed to collect since his release. He put them away in the cupboards and shelves she’d provided, lining some of the walls.

The rope was hanging there, just like she’d said, although he had to stretch to reach it. She didn’t want him hanging himself, obviously, as there wasn’t enough length to do so if he’d wanted to.

She came down only a minute or so later. She frowned when she saw him sitting at the table.

‘You didn’t comb your hair,’ she noted disapprovingly.

Ben swallowed audibly. ‘I couldn’t find a comb….’

‘Under the sink. Remember?’

That was where he’d kept all of the bathroom supplies, because he’d never got around to fixing the cabinet in their basement bathroom. She’d put some supplies where they were traditionally kept, but obviously some of it was still stored under the sink.

‘Ye…yes, ma’am,’ he said quietly, averting his eyes.

Her eyes burned into him, scorching his skin. ‘Not ma’am. What’s my name?’

Ben licked his lips. ‘Leanne.’

Her lips were pressed together in a thin line when he dared to look up at her.

‘Do you _want_ to go in the crate, Ben?’ she asked softly.

He glanced at it involuntarily, shook his head rapidly.

No. No, he never, ever wanted to go in the crate. Especially if she did what his foster mother of the time had done--left him in there for a few days at a time, let him sit in his own waste and ignored his cries for water, that he was very, very sorry and could he please be let out now.

‘Then what’s my name?’

He said nothing.

‘What did I tell you my name was?’ she said, a little harsher now.

‘Leia,’ he said, unwillingly, because the crate was worse than the United States penal system, and much deeper rooted than the US government-mandated therapy.

‘Good.’

The silence sat between them, and Ben finally felt a little angry.

‘What are we doing?’ he demanded. ‘Why did you bring me here? I was never going to try to find you--I was going to stay away, like they told me to. What’s the point of abducting me and locking me in a basement?’

Leia’s lips quirked, her muted sign of amusement. ‘Not funny when it’s happening to you, is it?’

Ben scowled. ‘Your lame idea of revenge, then? No one will miss me, you know. I have no job, I don’t pay rent to anyone--you--you _know_ I have no family,’ he added, choking a bit on the truth of it. ‘You had a family and friends I took you from--I don’t have anyone to be tortured over my absence. Not exactly a perfect revenge.’

She continued to seem amused. ‘I’m aware of all of that. You’re not telling me anything new.’

He mentally flailed a bit, confused and unable to keep a grip on his anger when she was so utterly unaffected--when she was _laughing_ at him, in her way, for being upset.

‘Why did you take me?’ she asked, the amusement fading. ‘And I don’t want to hear the lies you always told me. Why did you _really_ take me?’

Ben blinked. ‘I wasn’t lying.’

Leia’s face twisted into a scowl, and he hurried to explain.

‘Not to me. They weren’t lies to me. That really is how I see the world--it’s all a big ruin, a wasteland of darkness and cruelty. I saw you, alone, at this playground with no one paying attention to you, and you smiled at me. I wanted--I wanted to protect you from the world.’ He paused, rubbing his knees agitatedly. ‘I know now that I was very, very wrong, but at the time, I had the best intentions. You were so perfect, and I…I didn’t want you to see the bad parts of the world. I didn’t want you to be spoiled and ruined, the way people spoil and ruin everything they touch. I just forgot to protect you from myself.’ He paused again. ‘And I wanted something to love. I’ve never been loved--do you know that? Until you came along, no one in the world had ever loved me. No one had ever tried. I had all these good feelings inside and no one to give them to, and I didn’t know what to do. So I took you, and made you love me so I could love you.’

Leia’s face was stone. ‘I didn’t love you. I depended on you, but I didn’t love you. There’s a difference.’

That hurt. Ben said nothing, just chewed the inside of his lip.

‘The world isn’t as bad as you make it out to be,’ she went on coolly, ‘although, now that I’ve read about you and your history, I can see where you got that impression.’

She sounded so detached, like his ex-therapist. He was a fascinating specimen, nothing more.

She really hadn’t loved him, had she?

‘Did you bring me here to tell me that?’ he asked dully, fiddling with the tablecloth. ‘That the world really isn’t so bad? Because I’m sorry to disagree, but I live in a box behind a dumpster. I’ll be arrested if I go within a hundred feet of a school, even by accident. No one wants to hire me because they all think I’m a pedophile. The world doesn’t look that great to me.’

‘You did that to yourself,’ Leia said sharply. Then she calmed again. ‘I feel sorry for you--really, I do. You had a shitty childhood and a shitty adolescence that just turned into a shitty adulthood. But after you abducted me--after that, all of the supposed “badness” of the world was nothing you hadn’t brought on yourself.’

He looked away, because it was true, but that didn’t mean he was happy about it. The only thing in the world that had ever made him truly happy was, according to his ex-therapist, the worst thing he could have done, and it was only due to his twisted psyche that he thought it was good.

How was he supposed to function if his brain was so twisted and wrong that he couldn’t trust anything it told him? When it told him that good things were bad and bad things were good and that being happy was worth any price at all?

‘What do you want?’ he mumbled, lost again.

‘I want to protect you.’

He looked at her sharply--she was unreadable again. There was no amusement visible on her face this time.

‘Are you mocking me?’ he demanded anyway.

Leia’s expression did not even flicker. ‘No.’

He stared at her a moment longer, but she remained cold and unflinching.

‘Why…?’

‘I told you--I feel sorry for you,’ she said calmly. ‘You really did have it rough. If anyone had noticed your troubles years ago, maybe you wouldn’t have kidnapped me--maybe you could have got the help you needed before it went that far. Before you got that--desperate.’ She paused. ‘I was all right with it when the government was helping you along, but I’ve been watching you since your parole ended. They kind of cut the strings on you, didn’t they? There really was no transition, just boom, you’re on your own now. You’ve been struggling, and failing.’

Ben opened his mouth, but that was also true, so he shut it again.

She shot him an amused glance again, but chose not to comment. ‘It isn’t really even your fault, anymore. You’ve cleaned up your act, haven’t swiped any children, or even watched any. That thing with your ex-boss’s daughter was an accident--you didn’t see her coming, and you just crashed into her, you didn’t touch her, other than to help her up afterward.’

His eyes widened. ‘You saw that? Why didn’t you say anything? I might have kept that job if there was a witness to corroborate!’

‘Well, for one thing, I would have had to reveal that I was stalking you in my spare time,’ she said dryly. ‘That doesn’t look good, does it? And for another, I wanted to see if you’d land on your feet, or if you’d flail about for a while before you started sinking, or if you’d kidnap another girl and hole up somewhere. If it was options one or three, I was going to either leave you alone or report you to the police. You chose option two, however, and I felt sorry for you.’ She frowned. ‘You’ve been struggling your whole life, and no one’s ever really helped you. I didn’t want it to be like that anymore, and since I figured I was the only one likely to take an interest in you, I took it upon myself to help you out, and here we are.’

She fell silent.

Ben stared at her for several minutes, waiting, but she remained silent, blinking back at him calmly.

‘This is your idea of protecting me?’ he said flatly.

Leia shrugged elegantly. ‘Why not? It was _your_ idea of protecting _me_.’ He flinched, and she observed with interest. ‘Here you’ll have structure, meals, a roof over your head. What more could you want?’

He decided not to answer that--he didn’t deserve most of the things he wanted.

‘Structure?’ he asked instead.

‘Well, sort of. I didn’t exactly schedule out every minute of your day,’ she said bitterly, grimacing at some memory or other.

It couldn’t have been him, Ben realized, because he’d never made her a schedule, other than setting a bedtime. It had to have been something _after_ him--her parents, maybe?

He wasn’t brave enough to ask.

‘However, I do work, so our schedule will be fitted around _that_ schedule,’ she went on, regaining her calm. ‘Weekends, we can do whatever we like, but during the week, we have to get up and eat breakfast before I go to work, and we’ll eat dinner when I get back. I will want you in bed by a certain time. Other than that, I don’t particularly care when you do whatever you decide to do.’

‘And…outside?’ he asked tentatively, tensing because he was sure he knew the answer.

Leia’s expression hardened further and she raised a brow at him.

‘You even need to ask, Ben?’

He said nothing, sucking his lower lip into his mouth.

‘The world is a mean, nasty, terrible, ruined place, remember?’ she said, a faint mocking edge in her voice. ‘It’s my job to protect you from it, so you need to stay down here.’ She paused, and she almost looked pleased when she added, ‘And no windows, either. You might see something _scary_.’

He flinched very hard from that one, and Leia’s amusement grew.

‘What about lunch, when you’re gone to work?’ he asked instead, looking away.

‘I’ll leave you something, and you can eat it whenever you get hungry.’

He folded in on himself, quietly said, ‘Okay.’

‘Ben.’

‘Yeah?’

‘What do we say?’

…

‘Thank you.’


End file.
